Matrix Light 7: Without an Heir
by Wavelength
Summary: Matrix Light stories are loosely linked to one another, but are easily read as stand-alones. This is Rodimus' portion.... rated PG for violence and strong anti-Beasties sentiment.


Matrix Light: Without an Heir  
by Wavelength  
  
Disclaimer: The Transformers and all related terms are copyright HasKen, Marvel Comics, and Sunbow. Glimmer, however, is mine, and I've grown very fond of her, despite what I'm about to do to her. (Don't look shocked, this *is* Matrix Light, after all, not an upbeat series) Please ask if you want to borrow any of my characters.  
  
It stands at the center of Autobot civilization. Those whom it has chosen are legend. Those few who have dared take it by force have gone down in infamy.  
  
Repository of the past, symbol of the future, the very light of the life of Cybertron, it is the Matrix.  
  
May its wisdom illuminate our paths.  
  
******  
  
A fall of space debris lit up the sky, uncaring of the drama unfolding below it. The rock had traveled thousands of light years to meet its end as all things must, and would stop for nothing, not stars, not planets, and certainly not to observe the plight of two endangered souls on a world that, at long last, enjoyed peace. Tiny in view of the ancient sky, two metallic beings, who, moments before had admired the beauty of the star shower, fled before a small army of even tinier beings, the progeny of their race.  
  
"They knew we were coming here!" he shouted, dragging his mate along the broken ground as he took potshots at the robots who had ambushed and now herded them westward.  
  
He drew his long-unused pistol from subspace and shoved it into the Femme's hands as she retorted, "Gee, what was your first clue?"  
  
Her shots were inexperienced and rarely connected. Their opponents, on the other hand, were as good as any gunners in the Third Great War, and they took advantage of their smaller size and greater numbers, keeping either of them from doing much damage.  
  
The horde dogged their tracks as the two Autobots ran. Though energized by Vector Sigma at the beginning of the Golden Age, the far western regions of Iacon were deserted and nearly leveled, offering very little cover. They had tried calling for help and connected to static-filled channels. The immediate area was under a comm jamming blanket; their attackers had planned well.  
  
"You know, Glimmer, I really wish I'd pushed the Council for money to rebuild this area, just so there'd be people here when we needed them!" Twisted at the midsection, he downed two attackers with his pipe lasers in frustration.  
  
"Hindsight's always better, Rodimus," she pointed out, focused on running and shooting at the same time.  
  
"There's got to be an underground entrance around here somewhere. You dig, I'll hold them off." He ducked behind a shattered golden wall into what had once been an alley, followed closely by Glimmer.  
  
But she wasn't quite fast enough. A reptilian robot scored a blast through her left shoulder.  
  
"Slag it!" she cried out as Rodimus sent the little lizard to oblivion in pieces.  
  
"You alright?" A shot spanged of his meager cover as he looked away.  
  
"I can still dig, but I'm warning you, I'm no Aleta-1."  
  
"We only need the tunnels to escape, to hide until someone sees the jamming and investigates, we're not going to live in them."  
  
She eyed the lavender armor on her hands as she searched through the shining rubble. "We're gonna stick out like sore thumbs down there."  
  
Still firing, Rodimus commented without looking, "Aleta was pink."  
  
His mate lifted a particularly large piece of wall and chucked it over Rodimus' head at the advancing army, breaking three of them into more manageable scrap. "Good point."  
  
She then returned to digging, using her right hand for the most part now, and rotated her damaged left arm in its socket. "I shouldn't have done that," she muttered.  
  
Rodimus Prime continued to hold his position until Glimmer literally fell into the entrance they were seeking. She had been braced between two large hunks of metal, using her legs to push the smaller one out of place and her shoulders for stability. It shifted suddenly, and, unable to keep her balance, she tumbled into the vertical shaft below.  
  
She struck bottom with a clang and called up, "That was easy!"  
  
Rodimus raked the smaller robots with laser fire, forcing them to take their own cover, then leaped in after her.  
  
"Let's go!" He transformed, a neat trick in the cramped space of the tunnels as his trailer emerged from subspace.  
  
Glimmer hesitated. "You're not closing the tunnel after us?"  
  
"I can't move that. So we've gotta make tracks before they catch up."  
  
Convinced, she transformed into a heavy construction crane, her abused shoulder forming part of its undercarriage. The two of them sped along the winding tunnels as fast as her four giant tires could carry her.  
  
The cold walls closed in, and Rodimus Prime was afraid. For the first time since the war, he wondered if they would die and regretted leading Glimmer underground. In the brainstorm that led to his decision, hoping the assassins had never bothered to learn the ancient tunnel system, he had forgotten that she was very different from the Femmes of old.  
  
For one thing, she was a lot bigger. As her boom raised sparks along the ceiling for the third time, Glimmer complained, "I wish I hadn't fallen. Then I could have put that piece of junk back, and we wouldn't be trying to move so fast down here."  
  
"You know, in the old days we'd have needed a tractor-pressor beam just to move that."  
  
If Glimmer's face had been visible, it would have been grinning. "Score one for the construction chick."  
  
The tunnels snaked on beneath the city, but just as they thought they were either home free or completely lost, probably both, the enemy appeared in front of them. Rodimus transformed, his head just clearing the low ceiling. Behind him, the light purple crane was stuck, unarmed and unable to transform, since she stood over a head taller than him.  
  
Almost before his transformation sequence was complete, several red beams struck the Cybertronian leader, slicing off part of his spoiler and boring holes in his right arm and side. He kept himself between the small attackers and his disadvantaged companion, commanding, "Pull back! The ceiling's higher!"  
  
One shot got past him, taking off the end of Glimmer's crane boom, and he uttered an Earthen oath, then compared the intruders to rats.  
  
"Where did these come from? The last ones should be behind us!" The Femme had to scream to be heard over the din of laser fire and her own backpedaling wheels.  
  
"Primus only knows, and I hate to think I've outlasted Galvatron just to be hunted through the tunnels by people who are supposed to be on our side!" Rodimus backed up into her, hurrying her along and leaking bright energon over Glimmer's amethyst skin.  
  
The ceiling heightened above them, and she asked, "How bad is it?"  
  
"Pretty bad. They brought the big guns, more ergs than our armor was designed to take." He bull's-eyed one more, relieving him of his right side. "Bu at least they go down easy."  
  
She finally transformed and questioned, "Did you see any of them go gray? I didn't, not even on the surface."  
  
Dirty and smeared with energon, the hulking Femme looked almost delicate, her legs only half their usual breadth, owing to the missing portion of her crane mode's boom.  
  
Rodimus' shock was palpable as he realized what she was saying. "You're right. They fly apart like Junkions, but I haven't seen any die."  
  
While concentrating on the assassins ahead, the Autobots almost missed a second group behind them until one dislodged a loose pipe, which fell with a clatter. Glimmer, untrained though she was, immediately fell into a Weaver stance between them and the crouching Rodimus.  
  
The robot in the lead was a dead ringer for the lizard-like individual on the surface, which had tagged her and she had assumed dead under Rodimus' fire. He called out with an insane edge to his voice, "Attack! For the Pax Cybertronia!"  
  
Glimmer's jaw dropped when her translation circuits kicked in, "Over two vorns of peace and now we've gotta die for it?!" shots struck home on her armor, drawing energon and mech fluid to mingle with those of her mate that still stained her metal skin. Enraged, she targeted the reptilian robot's head, shattering it and changing his green armor to gunmetal gray. "Pax Cybertronia this, sucker!"  
  
Glimmer made a few more glancing shots with Rodimus' pistol, but was unable to kill or disable any others. Rodimus was better able to deal with his group of attackers, though he continued to take damage, and a few explosive rounds got past him, making shredded junk of Glimmer's dorsal armor. With each new injury, the femme weakened, but nothing got past her large frame to injure her leader.  
  
"Rodimus, this isn't working! I can't seem to get a bead on them! I'd be better off using my bare hands!"  
  
"Then do it! Mine are under control," he paused to let red laser fire wing past his head and into the wall, "But we need to stop them all."  
  
He shifted position, no longer back to back with her, but rather, against the scarred wall of the tunnel.  
  
Glimmer dropped his pistol at his feet and waded into the second group, the ones they had already battled on the surface. She was soon surrounded, and determinedly ripped them limb from limb. Balked for the moment, many tiny robots fell back from her onslaught, only to surge forward again.  
  
Her powerful arms drenched in energon up to the elbows, the construction robot resembled an Earthen goddess of death, but still the attackers did not die. However, she was satisfied just to disable them, sending arms and heads flying as she screamed in triumph and anger. The little assassins heedlessly offered themselves up for demolition, and she could hear the blasts Rodimus was producing somewhere behind her.  
  
"Forget rats, these guys are more like ants," he exclaimed as even more came pouring in from both ends of the shaft.  
  
"Just like ants. No brains and made for stomping," Glimmer stated firmly, flattening a snouted robot for emphasis.  
  
Then, things went from worse to even worse, as the ant queen arrived. Bearing herself with a calm, confident air, she came the way the Autobots had entered and toted a rocket launcher as big as she was. This new Femme was half Rodimus' height and stayed well back from Glimmer's flashing fists. She watched, unconcerned, as her allies disintegrated under the force exerted by her prey.  
  
Glimmer was helpless to prevent what happened next. Too far back for her to reach and blocked from Rodimus' line of fire by the Autobot Femme, the newcomer was free to position herself in the tunnel so she couldn't possibly miss. The incoming rocket spiraled to the construction robot's position and impacted with her stomach. Glimmer, who had never flown in this lifetime, found herself borne to the ceiling, bouncing her head off it before the toothed warhead tore all the way through. Gravity returned her violently to the floor and the rocket continued to chew its way into the ceiling, pushed by the combustion of its remaining fuel.  
  
She could not remember ever feeling such pain, and shrieked as she landed facedown on a number of the enemy foot soldiers, crushing them. Her own vital components were strewn all across the passage.  
  
Rodimus leapt clumsily to the light purple Femme's side as the roof groaned above them. However, there was nothing he could do. The Autobots were without medics in this lonely battlefield, and she was slipping away rapidly.  
  
A lavender hand reached up and yanked him to the ground, where he helped her along by slipping in the growing puddle of energon and mech fluid. Even while dying, the massive strength her designers had built into Glimmer's body served her well.  
  
"Stay down, you're not dead yet," she whispered, "And run away when I say to."  
  
The glow of her warm blue optics had been flickering like a candle in the wind, and now winked out. She had to be operating on auxiliary sensors or sheer Earther instinct alone as she gave a massive heave with her arms, exposing Rodimus to enemy fire once again and flipping herself into the air. At the top of her arc, the Femme could be heard to shout, "Ruuuuu....," before her purple-toned body faded to gray. Following the trajectory she had imparted upon it before death, her lifeless husk landed on its back, flattening enough attackers to clear a momentary escape path.  
  
Rodimus did as he was told. Barely glancing back, he sprinted past the heap of metal that had been his Joined mate and through the path she had cleared before transforming. There would be time to mourn later, after he was out from under the accursed jamming blanket and the assassins were caught.  
  
In his flame-splashed altmode, the Chosen leader of the Autobots and now the leader of all Cybertron sped through the tunnels. He kept a channel open, waiting for the reassuring sound of comm traffic that would tell him he was safe, he could call for help, that Glimmer's death had not been in vain. He was able to move faster now that she was... gone, by simple virtue of their differing designs, but his wounds still kept him from reaching top speed. Worse than that, they left an easy trail of energon to follow at every intersection.  
  
Fleeing blindly as he slowly bled to death in the mockingly cheerful glowing tunnels, Rodimus realized he was still lost. Nothing looked familiar, but he couldn't stop. Behind him, just at the edge of audio range, he could hear the approaching horde.  
  
He passed a branch tunnel to the right, then, his mind racing faster than his body, he took the next right turn and the next. He and Glimmer had been maneuvered into this. It was Lobonus who suggested he take her out to see the meteor shower, specifically told him the view would probably be best from western Iacon, where there would be no city lights to obscure the sky, only the natural light the entire world had produced ever since the Headmasters and Targetmasters closed the Plasma Energy Chamber during the last Great War. He had said his leader was working too hard and needed a break. They had suspected nothing, after all, this was the Golden Age and war no longer threatened Cybertron.  
  
There remained plenty of accidental hazards from the ruined areas of the planet, but for Cybertronian to war upon Cybertronian was unthinkable to the young mechanisms who made up most of the populace. Rodimus himself had only escaped being completely unprepared for an attack by old habit, which made him keep his armaments. If Glimmer had also been a 'paranoid old veteran like us', as his mentor Kup would have said, they may have stood a chance.  
  
Then again, as he made another right turn, he realized that they probably would not have emerged victorious with anything less than a plasma cannon. Skidding to a stop on his protesting brakes, Rodimus crashed right into the midst of the group that had been chasing him, a group filled with familiar faces of those he'd 'killed' already. Whatever Lobonus was up to, the Autobots' Prime would not be there to stop him. The little assassins were all over him in seconds, and the rocket-carrying Femme pressed their advantage by collapsing the ceiling behind him, blocking escape.  
  
Trapped in the intersection, Rodimus revved his engine and barreled through his opponents, crushing many under the wheels of his Winnebago form. Some died, and most others he ran over were out of the fight, hopelessly disassembled. But their comrades tore at his sides and hood, trying to get at the CPU beneath while others kept him running in circles avoiding laser and artillery fire.  
  
His first tire blew out running over a previous victim and he was forced to slow down, providing a better target. His enemies caught on quickly, shooting out the others and delivering punishment to the rest of his abused body. Unable to roll and mired in other people's body parts, which eerily crawled away from him on their own, he transformed.  
  
Rodimus Prime was a sorry sight, his proud red and yellow paintjob burned and energon-stained, with his windshield broken out and his pistol lost in a far away hall with the corpse of his love. But his optics shone azure defiance, and he mowed down the assassins with both arms' pipe lasers. If Lobonus wanted him dead, his agents would pay dearly for the privilege. He even had the pleasure of striking the Femme, just before her saw-toothed rocket took his head off.  
  
Prime's body tumbled, bright blue light shining from his neck, glinting off the shattered edges of his windshield, and pouring from the holes in his armored torso. Inside, the Matrix shrieked, "Betrayed!"  
  
This outburst of raw emotion from the echo of the Chosen remaining inside the Matrix was answered by the planet itself. The tunnel shook, its roof falling on Lobonus' Maximal assassins as Cybertron and the Matrix, inseparably linked, took their vengeance, defeating those Rodimus couldn't.  
  
No one escaped, though the tunnel remained open on one side. All the attackers were buried, deprived of stasis lock and condemned to die the slow death of starvation. Those in the city above thanked Primus that the groundquake had done no serious damage and no lives had been lost. A scientific inquiry was made into a possible link between the local communications disturbance, the quake, and the spectacular meteor shower the region had been fortunate enough to enjoy. There was no connection noticed between Rodimus and Glimmer's disappearances and the quake, and the next government, headed by Maximal majority leader Lobonus, made certain the matter was never given the attention it was due.  
  
Below, the grayed, headless corpse of the Chosen One leaned against a wall, watching over a tableau of death, lit by the shimmering light of the Matrix.  
  
Not The End, Not By A Long Shot 


End file.
